å Monday, February 27th, 2017

Exploitation is a form of manipulation, where a person or group is used to carry out certain tasks that benefit another; while the person or group is not properly compensated for their work. Throughout history, there have been various instances of exploitation such as slavery, child labor, unfair wages, etc. Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Frederici examines the mistreatment of women between the 14th and 19th centuries. In my essay I will discuss the exploitation of women as a method to increase the accumulation of wealth in a capitalist political society. My essay consists findings from Caliban and the Witch.

Beginning in the 14th century, women were slowly being pushed out of the workforce. Those who were a part of the workforce, were paid less than men and received extremely low wages for their work. The refusal of work towards women resulted in widespread poverty. Women did not possess the monetary funds to support themselves and their families; causing the deaths of many children due to starvation. Some women did reproductive labor in their home. However, the state did not view this as work, but as a natural responsibility; as a result, their labor was devalued (Federici, 2004). During this time, a large amount of women became prostitutes as a way to support their families. The exclusion of women from the workforce was demoralizing, because they were forced to do drastic deeds in order to survive and they were viewed as not worthy of work. The reproductive labor that women did at home was unacknowledged. However, placing women in the household was the foundation needed for the process of economic growth to begin.

During the 16th and 17th centuries Europe was experiencing a critical population crisis because of disease that claimed the lives of many. The region’s population was decreasing drastically which caused major concern within the government. During this time period the number of people a country had was associated with wealth; less citizens meant less wealth and more citizens meant more prosperity (Federici, 2004). This assumption led to the European government making a decision to increase their involvement in the lives of their female citizens. Great importance was placed on women and their reproductive capacities because their children symbolized a growth in the workforce and in the economy. Women lost control of their body and their ability to choose whether or not they wanted children. Contraception and abortion were heavily frowned upon and any women suspected of attempting to terminate or prevent a pregnancy were punished severely; sometimes resulting in death (Federici, 2004). Women were turned into child making factories for the sole purpose of accumulating wealth for the economy by giving birth to new workers. The government dictated who had children and when it was convenient for women to have them; thus turning their wombs into property (Federici, 2004).

Sexual division was prevalent in the 19th century. During this time, a women’s role was to be a full time housewife caring not only for her children, but most importantly for her husband. At home, women did reproductive labor and would frequently aid their husbands with their work. Women were not paid for assisting their husband or at home labor. This was another form of exploitation. These women were helping their husbands to produce, which in turn helped the economy; yet they were not paid or acknowledged for their work. Many women relied heavily on the income of their husbands because they themselves could not work; and whatever work they did at home had no importance to society. Through this, the government was able to further influence women by forcing them to be under the control of their husbands (Federici, 2004). Around this time, women who were single were frowned upon and their image was destroyed. Those unmarried were labeled as non-conformist. A woman working at home was a woman helping her husband to produce for the economy and her sacrifices were overlooked but her work was beneficial to the state.

Exploitation is a form of manipulation, where a person or group is used to carry out certain tasks that benefit another; while the person or group is not properly compensated for their work. Between the 14th and 19th centuries, women faced severe exploitation by the government with the intention of boosting the economy. In the 14th century women were losing their jobs and faced exclusion from the workforce; resulting in many participating in reproductive labor at home which helped the economy. During the 15th and 16 centuries the government used female reproductive capabilities as a method to increase the population in order to gain more workers which would in turn help with economic productivity. In the 19th century the work that women did as full time housewives greatly helped the economy, but was not rewarded. Women were being exploited; their bodies were controlled by the government. They were denied the right to work, which led to an increase in prostitution and poverty. Whatever work they did do was overlooked. An economy thrived at the expense of women’s rights, integrity, and their lives.

Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the Witch. 61-133.

Silvia Federici in her book “Caliban and the Witch” tells us about the time of the fifteen hundreds and how women were treated and affected negatively in that time. One event at the time had an exuberant amount of repercussions in coming times, the closing of commons. Early on in her text Federici tells the reader of how the commons at the time were a place for farmers to provide for themselves and they were also a common place for social gatherings. By being a place to have social gatherings, these commons were a great place for women to come together and share news and give their viewpoint on things with like minded people. The abolishment of the  open- field system  took this place of peace from women and ended up killing families that could no longer provide for themselves. A page later she tells us of the most affected of those that survived, older women. Due to the closing of communal areas these women had to survive by borrowing, petty theft, and delayed payments. Witch hunts were prevalent in the  fifteen hundreds. Women accused of witchcraft were given basically no trial and were killed in the thousands. While the closing of commons may not have been a direct cause, it easily was a factor in bringing about accusations. Nearly all accusations were false or were based on hatred. Simple things such as asking for help financially or unpaid rents were cause for accusations. This distrust of women became such a problem that even giving birth was cause for severe punishment if not done under strict guidlines. Contraception of any kind was seen as cause of infanticide with the consequence of death if discovered. Even having a birth that was not directly monitored by a male doctor was also cause for punishment among many other obscene reasons. Federici’s text tells us of the many injustices done to women such as removal of public spaces, the witch hunts, and capital punishment for what would be minor offenses, all stemming from a time of death and poverty.

In the Caliban and the witch, Silvia Frederici talks bout the connection between capitalism and feminism. There are many conflicts between industrial development and women’s society status. Marx measuring few points that are limited social position of women, and cause reason of racism. The industry market need more labor and bodywork, it put female in a struggle situation. Also, the weakness of physical factors put them into natural reproduction. In the other hand, the diversity of working environment caused “Primitive Accumulation”. People who have more labor power and wealth control the slave market. The economic market divide people into different status, European, African, man and women. The degradation is developing when the land privatization and price revolution.

In other ways, Silvia Frederici argue the political system and agricultural, people built more agricultural productivity and increase the food supply. It causes larger population growth during the eighteenth Europe. It also means women has less chance to get the education and opportunity to working or to be succeed. They are more likely live in a natural environment, became housekeeping and dependency. The military system also created at that time, women do not have chance too involved any political action and economic control during fifteenth century. Feminism is destroyed by the capitalism and maxims, the society did not accept to have own opinion and behavior. By the way, the women lost their own properties, violence from male and the ability of pregnancies. Degradation is explored when the industry is burning. Development of separation of workers and landlords, the dependency of wages and food markets. We realized the female has unfair wages or employment in market, different social status determines what kinds of jobs they have. There are many factors affect the industry world is developing, the women lost control of childbirth because of population’s growth. The society control of women and they most likely became a producer in seventeenth century.

In conclusion, the degradation is developing by the Marxism and capitalism. Most women lost power and social status during that that. They were becoming a birth tools or lower class in Europe and American. The labor market caused white men or landowners have total power to controlling the market.

In chapter one, Federici describes the breakdown of women’s autonomy with the rise of capitalism by elaborating on the shift from self-sufficiency to wage labor that occurred in the middle ages. As the wages increased for the peasants and profits decreased the state had to step in to rebalance the diminishing wealth of the ruling class. Although European society was moving towards a cooperative egalitarian economy, the economy would not be able to sustain itself and the hierarchy. Due to this circumstance the ruling class had to find a way to eliminate competition and manipulate people to work in undesirable conditions, without exploitive labor workers’ would be able to resist and the wealthy would lose their power. Women were essentially driven out of the labor-force, allowed only the lowest paid jobs, by the promotion of witch-hunts or imprisonment until eventually transitioning to unpaid housewife and further dependent on men. Additionally, if a woman was without children and attempted to resist the economic conditions she would be risking physical and sexual violence.

Assisting in further exploitation was the rise of the slave trade, through buying humans or convicting them of crimes and shipping them to other colonies. The revived practice was necessary to make up for the decimated native population that could not withstand the abusive labor practices. Despite the extreme poverty and death, the sexual and racial divides were not easy to overcome. The denial of communal property by landowners was purposeful to control the food supply as well as dependent on the ruling class for wages and housing. The transition to a global capitalist system was filled with starvation, further land privatization and attacks on collective gatherings. Eventually the state intervenes again when the capitalist economic system becomes clearly unstable, not to abolish it like the egalitarian society, but to establish public assistance as a balance for cheap labor, profit margins and social control of the disenfranchised.

According to Silvia Frederici in her article “The Caliban and the Witch,” women had been discounted as part of the capitalist’s investment. In the Middle ages, feudalism was deeply rooted into European society for a very long time. Until the shift between workers and masters occurred, nothing was sufficient enough to demolish the old concept and hierarchies. Frederici brings up Marx’s idea of which connects the feudal reconstruction to the development of capitalism. According to that, European working class set up the foundation of capitalist system. However, in Marx’s introduction of “transition to capitalism,” he does not mention the social position of women and how it was shifted due to social and economic changes. According to Frederici, women were only treated as a working machine. In other words, they were merely the reproduction of work force. The accumulation of wealth was eventually made by exploited workers, but the more important thing is that there was also a division within the working class and people suffered much more due to race and gender. Therefore it supports Frederici’s idea that capitalism is committed to both sexism and racism. The capitalist class in Europe had policies that shaped the proletariat. One of the policies was cutting wages of women. There also was a hierarchy between indigenous, African and European women. These were happened to discipline and reproduce the capitalist class. The means of self sufficiency brought wealth of people in some sense, but it excluded certain class from the hierarchy, which does not fit the general capitalist idea. As a result, capitalism brought different forms of enslavement. The exploitation was not just about physical abuse and labor, but was intensified in terms of ideology. Also, derived from this idea the clear division of gender and race was created. The whole process of degradation came into place. Eventually it became the foundation of capitalist accumulations that shaped a big part of the society.

When the land started to become privatized and work was changed into a free wage labor market, almost all women lost their production jobs such as working on the field. Instead, they were degraded to the point where almost anything they did was seen as housekeeping or helping the man. This started happening because women lost their land, or a common area, where they could talk to other women and share ideas without the influence of males. It was also harder for women to work production jobs and travel since they had to take care of children or would get pregnant which meant it was harder for them to do the job even if they were available. This caused many women to riot which eventually lead to them being arrested and further degraded.

When women did any work it was seen as housekeeping work no matter what it was and that they were working for the men. If there was women working in production, it was only cause they were seen as there to help their husbands. In France, women were expected to register their pregnancies and weren’t allowed to terminate them. Contraception was also made illegal,  These laws were of course made by men. There was a huge emphasis on women keeping their babies because more children meant that in the future, there would be more people working in production if they were male. Women being pregnant and giving birth was also eventually credited to the men who were doctors in society instead of the women. The men were said to be giving life even though it was the women who had the baby in her womb and gave birth. This system was seen as profitable since both men and especially women were getting paid less than how much the products they made would be sold for, which meant more money for the state.

In Silvia Federici’s reading, she described the degradation of women’s social status in the period of Capitalism. The article had mention that in 14th century, the women can got half the pay of man, but in the mid-16th, they only earn one-third of man’s wages. This fact states the degradation of women’s social status. During 16th century, women’s power was being crushed, they were forcing to worked on the jobs that were unpaid or low paid. They were excluded from many wages occupation, even they had the same job with males, they still earn less compared with males.
In 19th century, there were more women that became full time housewife, in relation with men. The rate of more women were dependence on men was increasing, because there has no access to earn wages for unmarry women, they were under the condition of poverty, economic dependence. The only thing they can do were to rely on men.
During the transition of Feudalism to Capitalism, there was a time period called Patriarchy. In that time, women were lived as a ‘Wages-slavery’: The man was receiving his wife’s wages, the woman didn’t get the money even she worked so hard. In this way, women was impossible to have their own money.
In conclude, women’s social status was being degraded. Their wages get low, and the chance of work opportunities were limited for them, the way for women to survive was rely on men. They were also being insult and assault by men with inequality treatment. Their social status has became more inferior to men.

Federici describes the degradation of women as a relation to the changes in the social-economic system in Europe and the New World. As the economy of Europe changed from Feudalism to Capitalism, women’s roles changed along with it. Federici says, “the ‘transition to capitalism’ is a test case for feminist theory, as the redefinition of productive and reproductive tasks and male-female relations that we find in this period” (14). Where a woman’s role in the household was once valued because she was able to knit her family’s clothing and help her husband till their farm, once economic life became commercialized, women were forced to buy their clothing and buy their produce. They could no longer function as imperative forces in their homes. Furthermore, the term “housewife” meant that a woman was working full-time in her home (raising children, cooking, cleaning), as an unrecognized, unpaid laborer. Women were degraded in this way and became dependent on their husbands.

Federici explains that once mercantilism started to grow, there was a dire need for population growth to accommodate such a work force. The wealth of a nation was therefore dependent on its number of citizens. This population crisis put a huge amount of pressure on women. A woman’s role was now to reproduce. Women lost control of their own bodies. They were marginalized if they were taking any form of birth control, if they had complications during pregnancy, or if they were barren. Federici argues that witch hunts came about because of this crisis — men needed someone to blame for the lack of reproduction. Women were deemed witches if they were unable or unwilling to reproduce. Even midwives were blamed if there was a complication during birth. Many midwives were persecuted or lost their jobs. The result was an massive increase in male doctors.

Women saw many forms of discrimination during these economic changes. There came about a new sexual division of labor and sexual hierarchy in a political society. Federici claims, “discrimination that women have suffered in the wage work-force has been directly rooted in their function as unpaid laborers in the home” (94-95). She believes the degradation of women — racism and sexism in labor roles — stemmed from capitalist development and ideologies which marginalized women’s work life in their homes and outside the home as well.

Before reading this piece, I did believe that capitalism directly caused sexism and worked to harm women each day. Women were unable to have equal rights in the workforce, were placed in unfair unsafe working conditions, and are not given the same wages to this day. In this piece, women are described as having their work being valued as less than that of a man’s. Because of the fact that they are women, the bosses are able to pay them less and treat them more poorly, which is seen as normal by the white male population. Women were increasingly seen as housewives, which were expected to stay at home and work from there, relying on the wages of the man. Women who worked outside of the home still had little access to resources because of their low wages; for example, if a woman worked in a wheat factory it would still be very likely that she could not afford bread on her own. This system caused women to have to rely on men, staying with them and being unhappy just to make a living. Separation was impossible for economic reasons as well as societal reasons, so women were forced to stay in unhappy or abusive marriages because it would be impossible for them to live otherwise. Many women were politically involved during this time, protesting food shortages and unfair working conditions. Women rose up against their unfair treatment, and fought for their rights as seen in the years previous to this. To me this shows the persistence and strength of women, as they are always continuously faced with disadvantages that they fight against. The rebellion and efforts of women are extremely important to the history of women, as it demonstrates the effectiveness of women coming together to fight against patriarchal rule and unfair conditions.